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Edgar Degas, mathematician. – Math with Bad Drawings

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When I lived in England, the little university museum across the road boasted a painting by Edgar Degas. It was nice: two horses cantering before a race, blue-green grass below, pink sky above… and, inexplicably, a pole blocking your view. Not in the museum; the pole was in the painting itself. Oh, how I resented that pole: it was like Degas had opted to save a little cash by placing us in the discount obstructed-view seats. When the tour guide mentioned that the painting was the most valuable in the museum, worth perhaps fifty million pounds, I coughed in outrage. Did no one else notice the pole?! Two years later I returned, saw the painting again, and thought: It’s perfect. The pole gives a sense of motion, of a scene of unfolding—a snapshot feel achieved in an age before snapshots. According to art historians, few painters have equaled Edgar Degas at capturing the little movements of everyday life. He drew the puffing cheeks of oboists, curls of smoke in bustling cafés, ballerinas s

Math October 22, 2024 October 4, 2024 3 Minutes a.k.a. “Movement in Its Exact Truth” a.k.a. “Math with Good Drawings” When I lived in England, the little university museum across the road boasted a painting by Edgar Degas. It was nice: two horses cantering before a race, blue-green grass below, pink sky above… and, inexplicably, a pole blocking your view. Not in the museum; the pole was in the painting itself. “Jockeys Before the Race,” exhibited 1879. Glimpsed by the author in 2014 (with consternation) and 2016 (with admiration). Oh, how I resented that pol

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